OMNI Center for Peace, Justice, and Ecology invites you to
attend our annual Remembrance of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki: Sunday, August 6.

OMNI remembers the death of 230,000 innocents of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki, renounces war and threats of war, joins the Global Zero hopes of
all humanity for the abolition of nuclear weapons, and celebrates the United
Nations Treaty Initiative to ban nuclear weapons.

Music, poetry and speakers will reflect on the meaning of the
day. And a possible live-stream video
with Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui is being confirmed.

This is always a deeply meaningful occasion for people who
long for peace. Please join us Sunday
August 6, 6:00 pm at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, 901 W. Cleveland.

We are not alone, but these anti-nuclear weapons
organizations need your physical and financial support. Some of you might want to support all of
them, and that will be your major project for peace. Others can choose one or two. But doing nothing to help them supports the exterminators.

The first organizations advocate banning the nuclear bombs,
because, given the planetary destructiveness of the largest bombs, nothing less
will protect the human project.

Peace Action, seeking ban on
nuclear weapons, meanwhile also urging a Middle East WMD free of nuclear
weapons, cancelling funding of the US $1 trillion modernization (nuclear
weapons forever) program, and more, as do all of the following

Center
for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, John Tierney, focused on
restraining national proliferation of the weapons and on reducing the number of
weapons

HISTORY OF THE BOMB CONTINUED

THE
WEAPON: Eric Schlosser, Command and Control, Book
on TITAN II Accident at Damascus, AR. The Titan II carried a
W-53 thermonuclear warhead, with more than 560 times the explosive yield of the
bomb that destroyed Hiroshima.

THE
RESISTANCE: Dan Zak’s Almighty. An 80-year-old nun, a Vietnam veteran, and a housepainter,
members of the religious group Ploughshares, broke into the Y-12 complex at Oak
Ridge. “Zak gracefully synthesizes the
stories of the politicians and bureaucrats controlling stockpiles of weapons
and those of the [Ploughshares] activists working to disarm them.” –Publisher’s Weekly

Google Search 7-20-17 of Mother
Jones MagazineExposing the US Nuclear Weapons Program

See OMNI’s Nonviolence Newsletters. Here’s #11, the latest; #12 is in
preparation. NONVIOLENCE NEWSLETTER
#11, DECEMBER 28, 2016, http://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2016/12/nonviolence-newsletter-11.html Many of you believe in nonviolence and are
seeking ways to promote it. Consider
become editor of the nonviolence newsletters, or of the Hiroshima-Nagasaki
newsletter, or any newsletter of interest to you.

REMEMBERING THE NUCLEAR BOMBINGS OF HIROSHIMA AND
NAGASAKI, For the Future

On
August 6, 1945, the Japanese city of Hiroshima was destroyed by a nuclear
weapon, an atomic bomb dropped by the United States. Three days later, a
second atomic bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki; five days after that,
Japan unconditionally surrendered to the United States, bringing an end to
World War II.

The
atomic bombs killed several hundred thousand people, many instantly in the
nuclear fire, many later with burns, injuries and radiation sickness, and
still many others, over the years, with cancers and birth defects. These
deaths continue to this day. Like most of the cities bombed in World War II,
the majority of the inhabitants were women, children and the elderly.

Before
the war began, bombing cities was considered an act of total barbarism; there
were no “conventional bombs” and it certainly was not considered
“conventional” to target civilian populations for mass destruction. But this
ideal was shattered early in the war, and eventually all sides engaged in
mass bombing raids against cities and civilians.

After
the Nazis conducted their massive bombing raids against London, the British
retaliated by developing incendiary bombs, fire-bombs designed to burn down
cities. British and American bombers dropped these bombs on 5 German cities,
killing hundreds of thousands of German civilians in Hamburg, Dresden,
Kassel, Darmstadt, and Stuttgart. In March, 1945, the U.S. fire-bombed the
city of Tokyo, killing at least 100,000 people.

By
the time the atomic bombs were dropped on Japan, 50 million people had already
died in World War II. The bombing/murder of civilian populations had occurred
so many times that it was no longer even regarded as unusual. I believe this
is perhaps the greatest tragedy of the war, and it set the stage for the Cold
War and the nuclear arms race that followed.

When
you view these images of Hiroshima, remember that there is a good chance that
a nuclear weapon may now be targeted on your own city and home. And consider
that modern nuclear weapons are generally 8 to 50 times more powerful than
the first atomic bombs that destroyed the Japanese cities.

Hiroshima & Nagasaki

Before
Destructionhttp://www.nucleardarkness.org/hiroshima/

Nuclear Darkness would like to thank the City of Hiroshima
(Cultural Promotion Division Culture and Sports Department Citizens Affairs
Bureau) for letting us use the Panorama
Pictures of Hiroshimahttp://www.nucleardarkness.org/hiroshima/

In the preface to her
book, Sachiko: A Nagasaki Bomb Survivor’s Story, Minneapolis writer Caren Stelson relates an
event in a Minneapolis park on August 26, 2005 that changed her life. It was a
commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II and the atomic
bombings of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A Japanese woman who
had survived the bombing of Nagasaki spoke that day, and five years later,
Stelson tracked Sachiko Yasui down to ask her if Stelson could share her story
with young readers. Sachiko has
just been longlisted for the 2016 National Book Award in Young People’s
Literature.

What inspired you to
write Sachiko?

The first time I met
Sachiko Yasui, I was inspired by her strength, courage, resilience, and hope
for peace. How does a six-year-old child survive nuclear war? How does a child
heal from such an apocalyptic experience and find a pathway peace as an adult?
I wanted to understand Sachiko’s life’s journey. In times such as ours, I
believe Sachiko’s story is important for all of us to contemplate.

The U.S. bombed
Nagasaki in 1945. Why is Sachiko’s story still relevant to young people so many
years later?

Susan Southard’s award-winning book, Nagasaki: Life After Nuclear War, was just released in
paperback for the 71st anniversary of the atomic
bombings of Japan. Below
is a short excerpt from Chapter 3-Embers, which takes place in the pre-dawn
hours of August 10, 1945, some 16 hours after the
atomic bombing of Nagasaki.

Three young people are mentioned here. Taniguchi Sumiteru,
16, was just over a mile from the bomb, delivering mail on his bicycle through the hills of northern Nagasaki when the blast
force of the bomb threw him off his bicycle. His entire back was burned
off, and he lay on a hillside for three days before being found.
Thirteen-year-old Yoshida Katsuji had been only a half-mile away and was facing
the bomb; he was thrown back 130 feet across a field, a road, and an irrigation
channel, then plunged to the ground, landing on his back in a rice paddy
flooded with shallow water. Yoshida’s body and face were brutally scorched.
Nagano Estsuko, 15 (no relation to Governor Nagano in this excerpt), had been
further away from the blast, over the mountains that enclosed Nagasaki on three
sides. She had raced toward the
annihilated city and
by sheer coincidence she had run into her father as they both tried to get to
their home near the center of the blast.

Nagasaki mayor Okada Jukichi had spent the night of August 9
atop a hill on the eastern border of the Urakami Valley, waiting in a panic for
the fires below to diminish. At 3 a.m. on August 10, he made his way down the
hill. In darkness lit only by scattered embers, he stumbled through debris and
bodies to the place where his house had stood the day before, just a few
hundred feet from the hypocenter. The soles of Okada’s shoes burned as he
frantically combed through the hot ashes for his wife and children. Finding no
trace of them, he hurried to the air raid shelter beneath his house to discover
at least ten dead bodies, including those of his entire family. Simultaneously
crazed and clearheaded, he proceeded to the next neighborhood over, where he
identified the deceased family members of his deputy mayor.

Okada was one of the earliest witnesses to the
still-smoldering hypocenter area, which had been totally unreachable the day
before. Covered in soot, he ran across the low southeastern mountains bordering
the Urakami Valley to the air raid shelter of the Nagasaki Prefecture Air
Defense Headquarters near Suwa Shrine. The mayor reported what he had seen to
Governor Nagano, estimating the death toll at fifty thousand people—far higher
than Governor Nagano could have imagined. Stunned, the governor decided to
request regular updates from police chiefs in each region of the city and to
dispatch reports to Japan’s home minister in Tokyo every half hour with updated
damages and fatality estimates from what he still called the new-type bomb.

While Okada was searching for his family in the middle of
the night, a three-man documentary crew—veteran war photographer Yamahata
Yōsuke, writer Higashi Jun, and painter Yamada Eiji—arrived at Michino-o
Station, in the rural outskirts of Nagasaki two miles north of the hypocenter.
The team, sent by Japan’s News and Information Bureau—the government’s military
propaganda organization—had been given orders to record Nagasaki’s damages for
use in anti-U.S. propaganda campaigns. Due to Nagasaki’s damaged tracks,
Michino-o Station was as far south as the train could go.

After their 11-hour journey, the men stepped off into the
cool night air and began walking toward the city to report to the military
police headquarters in southern Nagasaki. Their path took them along hillsides
near where Taniguchi lay. From the top of a small mountain at Nagasaki’s
northern edge, the vast atomic plain lay before them, dotted by small fires
still burning in the ruins. Layers of smoke wafted overhead.

NAGASAKI:
Life After Nuclear Warby
Susan Southard. Penguin, 2015. “We
made our first steps into this macabre domain,” Higashi later wrote, “as though
embarking on a journey into a different world.” With only the light of the
crescent moon and the scattered fires to help them see, the men reached the
main prefectural road running north-south through the Urakami Valley, barely
detectable beneath layers of ashen rubble. The air was hot. They stumbled over
bodies and passed people lying on the ground begging for water. A mother, dazed
and confused, held her dead child in her arms and whimpered for help. The men
offered the victims kind and encouraging words, but there was little else they
could do. Higashi, however, was aghast when he stepped on something “soft and
spongy” and discovered that he was standing on the corpse of a horse, and he
was terrified when a person suddenly surfaced from a hole in the ground and
grabbed his leg, begging for help.

The men walked for two hours, past the areas where Yoshida
lay on the ground and Nagano and her father huddled in a crowded air raid
shelter. They finally reached the military police headquarters, damaged but
still standing. After reporting in, the team walked to the hills to wait for
the morning light.

Susan Southard holds an MFA in
creative writing from Antioch University, Los Angeles, and was a nonfiction
fellow at the Norman Mailer Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Nagasaki:
Life After Nuclear Waris
the recipient of the 2016 Lukas Book Prize, sponsored by the Columbia School of
Journalism and Harvard University’s Nieman Foundation for Journalism, and was
named a best book of the year by The Washington Post, The
Economist, the American Library Association, and Kirkus
Reviews.

PAUL H. JOHNSTONE was a
senior analyst in the Weapons Systems Evaluation Group (WSEG) in
the Pentagon. He was assistant director of three crucial
studies on outcomes of nuclear war and the director of a fourth, on
the impact on civilians. He also initiated a series of
“critical incident” studies recounting
decision-making problems, which led to the McNamara study of the
errors
of Vietnam war policy known as The Pentagon Papers and
was one of its
authors.

SYNOPSISThis deathbed memoir by Dr. Paul H. Johnstone, former senior
analyst
in the Strategic Weapons Evaluation Group (WSEG) in the Pentagon
and a co-author of The Pentagon Papers, provides an
authoritative
analysis of the implications of nuclear war that remain insurmountable
today. Indeed, such research has been kept largely secret, with the
intention “not to alarm the public” about what was being cooked up.

This is the story of how U.S. strategic planners in the 1950s and
1960s
worked their way to the conclusion that nuclear war was unthinkable. It
drives home these key understandings:

• That whichever way you look at it -- and this book shows the many
ways analysts tried to skirt the problem -- nuclear war means mutual
destruction

• That Pentagon planners could accept the possibility of totally
destroying another nation, while taking massive destructive losses
ourselves, and still conclude that “we would prevail”.

• That the supposedly “scientific answers” provided to a wide range of
unanswerable questions are of highly dubious standing.

• That official spheres neglect anything near a comparable effort to
understand the “enemy” point of view, rather than to annihilate him, or
to use such understanding to make peace.

Dr. Johnstone’s memoirs of twenty years in the Pentagon tell that
story succinctly, coolly and objectively. He largely lets the facts speak
for themselves, while commenting on the influence of the Cold War
spirit of the times and its influence on decision-makers.

Johnstone writes: “Theorizing about nuclear war was a sort of virtuoso
exercise in creating an imaginary world wherein all statements must
be consistent with each other, but nothing need be consistent with
reality because there was no reality to be checked against.”

While remaining highly secret – so much so that Dr. Johnstone himself
was denied access to what he had written – these studies had a major
impact on official policy. They contributed to a shift from the notion
that the United States could inflict “massive retaliation” on its Soviet
enemy to recognition that a nuclear exchange would bring about
Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD).

The alarming truth today is that these lessons seem to have been
forgotten in Washington, just as United States policy has become as
hostile to Russia as it was toward the Soviet Union during the Cold
War. U.S. foreign policy is pursuing hostile encirclement of two major
nuclear powers, Russia and China. Without public debate, apparently
without much of any public interest, the United States is preparing to
allocate a trillion dollars over the next thirty years to modernize its
entire nuclear arsenal. It is as if all that was once understood about
the
danger of nuclear war has been forgotten.

See below for more history of nuclear weapons.

RESISTANCE TODAY: from REFORMS: REDUCTIONS IN
BOMBS TO ABOLITION OF ALL NUCLEAR BOMBS

The International Campaign to Abolish
Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) is a coalition of non-governmental
organizations in one hundred countries promoting adherence to and
implementation of the United Nations nuclear weapon ban treaty. This landmark
global agreement was adopted in New York on 7 July 2017.

Global Zero is the
international movement for the elimination of all nuclear weapons. Its members
understand that the only way to eliminate the nuclear threat – including
proliferation, nuclear terrorism and humanitarian catastrophe – is to stop the
spread of nuclear weapons, secure all nuclear materials and eliminate all
nuclear weapons: global zero. The movement combines cutting-edge policy
development and direct dialogue with governments with public outreach,
including media, online and grassroots initiatives to make the elimination of
nuclear weapons an urgent global imperative.

Since its launch in
Paris in December 2008, it has grown to include 300 world leaders and half a
million citizens worldwide; hosted four Global Zero Summits and numerous
regional conferences; built an international student movement with more than
175 campus chapters in 29 countries; produced an acclaimed documentary,
Countdown to Zero, with the team behind An
Inconvenient Truth; launched cutting-edge international campaigns in key
countries; and produced compelling, high-production videos to reach millions of
people worldwide with an empowering call to action.

Global Zero’s role as
a global catalyst for bold leadership toward the elimination of all nuclear
weapons has never been more important. That is what the entire international
Global Zero movement is working for – the leaders and experts, artists and
cultural icons, as well as grassroots activists and student leaders who
represent the world’s first post-Cold War generation. It is imperative
that we bring all of our assets to bear and exert the international support and
pressure necessary to bring a world without nuclear weapons within reach.https://www.globalzero.org/about

Global Zero is the
international movement for the elimination of nuclear weapons.

TAKE
ACTION and
help us eliminate the nuclear threat once and for all? Add your name now.

with Michael
Douglas, Matt Damon, Morgan Freeman, Robert De Niro, Naomi Watts and a host of
amazing artists! mobilize your peers,
lead creative campaigns, and apply real pressure on policymakers to eliminate
all nuclear weapons, everywhere.

LEARN MORE about the nuclear threat
and the Global Zero solution for the elimination
of all nuclear weapons proposal for
deep cuts to the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

GZ IN THE NEWS

Top of Form

Bottom of Form

On April 24,
2014, the Republic
of the Marshall Islands (RMI) filed lawsuits against all nine Nuclear Weapon
States in the International Court
of Justice and, separately, against the United States in U.S. Federal District
Court.

The Non-Proliferation Treaty has been in force for over 44
years. The Nuclear Weapon States
continue to rely heavily on nuclear weapons and are engaging in modernization
programs to keep their nuclear weapons active for decades to come.

The
time has come for the Nuclear Weapon States to be held accountable for their
inaction.

Learn More and Act

For more information on the Nuclear Zero
Lawsuits and to sign the petition, go to www.nuclearzero.org.

I feel boundless admiration also for the persevering peacemakers who sustain
the nonviolent Ground
Zero Center in Washington State. They offer an illuminating guide to our
efforts to connect our Remembrance with the international movement to abolish
nuclear weapons. Get acquainted with
them. The following letter contains some
ideas we might use at our Remembrance and following. Dick
1-1-17

One year is nearly
over and another about to begin, and this is NOT a plea for donations. This
is a different kind of request. I want you to read on and join us in building
the world we know is possible, yet may seem so far off. Yes, it takes money.
Yet, it takes so much more than that. As we have learned from the wisdom of
Standing Rock, we need to "support, educate, protect, collaborate,
unify, occupy and protest" and much more.

The horrible seeds
of humanity's destruction that were sown so many decades ago have been
nurtured since then by the keepers of
the bomb. Today, the keepers of the bomb continue to design and build a
new generation of these devices of nuclear extinction. The US government is
moving ahead with all speed, slated to spend $1 trillion over 30 years, to rebuild that devil's progeny of the
Cold War, which, along with Russia, is driving
a new arms race that can only drive the Doomsday Clock even closer to Midnight. Is it not ironic
that the two powers that drove the world to the brink during the Cold War are
once again planting the new and improved seeds of humanity's destruction? Is
this not some form of insanity? The most recent comments by President-elect
Trump and President Putin make it crystal clear that those who we elect (and
I use that term with great reservation) have far less wisdom (and perhaps
sanity as well) than they claim.

As President Obama leaves The White
House, he also leaves a legacy we would never have expected following his now
infamous Prague speech. It is tragic that the Nobel Peace Prize winner did
not summon the courage of whatever convictions he retained to stand strong
against the demands of Congress (and the Military-Industrial Complex) and
instead build a bridge to Putin, negotiating a number of steps that would
have ramped back the nuclear danger. Instead, he has facilitated what is
inarguably a new arms race and Cold War that is moving ahead at an alarmingly
increasing pace.

It is unconscionable
that such a small number of nations, led by the US and Russia, have held, and
continue to hold, the rest of the world under the threat of nuclear annihilation.
Our task, then, is clear - to deepen
our resistance to nuclear weapons and seeking their total abolition! A monumental, yet absolutely critical
goal. Nothing less than ZERO will ensure the safety and survival of future
generations. And THAT will require embracing a new paradigm, far different
than that which has driven the nuclear age to this point. It is a paradigm of
mutual security rather one of mutually assured destruction.

Ground
Zero Center for Nonviolent Action offers the opportunity to
explore the meaning and practice of nonviolence from a
perspective of deep spiritual reflection, providing a
means for witnessing to and resisting all nuclear
weapons, especially Trident. We seek to go to the root
of violence and injustice in our world and experience
the transforming power of love through nonviolent
direct action.

Welcome to the new and
improved GZ Nonviolence E-News. We are now using
Mailchimp as the platform to stay in touch with all of you in
our continuing work together toward a nuclear weapon-free
world.

Much has happened in the world since our last e-newsletter.
Much of the news (in the corporate press) has mirrored the
ongoing angst about the Democratic People's Republic of Korea
(aka: North Korea) and the danger its nuclear weapons could
present to the US "homeland." Meanwhile, the
long-established nuclear powers continue to modernize their
arsenals, while refusing to honor their obligations
under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear
Weapons, commonly known as the Non-Proliferation Treaty or
NPT.

The really important news (that much of the press all but
ignored) is the recent announcement that the United Nations
Conference to Negotiate a Legally Binding Instrument to
Prohibit Nuclear Weapons adopted the historic Treaty on the
Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Unlike other treaties,
including the NPT, this is the first true multilateral
nuclear disarmament treaty negotiated since the dawn of the
nuclear age.

With
no help from the nuclear-armed nations and their vassal
states the world - in a collaborative effort of civil
society and diplomats - sent a clear message that it is high
time to abolish nuclear weapons. Click here to read more about
the treaty.

In a Joint Statement released after the treaty was
adopted, the United States, Britain and France said, “We
do not intend to sign, ratify or ever become party to it.”
What a surprise!!!

Setsuko Thurlow, a survivor of the Hiroshima
bombing (or Hibakusha), praised the dedication of everyone
who had put their “brains and hearts” into the negotiations.
She asked delegates to pause and remember the hundreds of
thousands of people who had perished in Hiroshima and
Nagasaki. “Each person who died had a name,” she said. “Each
person was loved by someone.” She said she had been waiting
seven decades for this day and was overjoyed that it had
finally arrived because it marked the beginning of the end of
nuclear weapons. The world would not return to failed nuclear-deterrence
policies. “If you love this planet you will sign this
Treaty,” she said, declaring: “Nuclear weapons have always
been immoral; now they are also illegal.”

As
for the Trident nuclear weapon system, it continues to
represent the most important element of US nuclear weapons.
Under the U.S.-Russia New START treaty signed in 2010,
roughly 70-percent of the U.S.’ nuclear warheads will be
deployed on Trident. And, the development and production of a
new generation of Trident - 12 new submarines costing
over $100 billion - only serves to subvert non-proliferation
and disarmament efforts, and gives countries like North Korea
further justification for their nuclear weapons programs.

The new ban treaty marks the beginning a new era of
stigmatization of the continued preparation by the
nuclear-armed nations that threatens humanity on an
existential level. It will require a massive global effort by
parliamentarians, NGO’s, and civil society, all working
together, to bring a huge, continuous groundswell of pressure
on the nuclear armed nations to not just “disarm,” but to
create a paradigm shift away from violent conflict and toward
mutual security assurances among nations. The framework and
functioning of the United Nations must be respected and
strengthened. Nonviolence MUST become the order of the day
(and of the new era).

At Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action we continue to
not only resist Trident, but to work, through the active
study and practice of nonviolence, for the total
abolition of these useless devices that threaten humanity
with extinction. Here's a brief rundown of what's
new and what's coming up in our corner of the world.

NEW AND IMPROVED GZ WEB SITE
We are absolutely thrilled to announce our updated web site.
In addition to easier navigation, it's much more dynamic. Our
new webmeister has been working hard to provide a more
interactive experience where people can learn about nuclear
weapons, the issues they present, and take action to help
build a nuclear weapon-free world.

You will find plenty of informative posts, information on GZ
events, and much more. If you haven't seen the new web
site, click here to check it out. MORE

WAND

The following note is from Susan Cundiff of WAND who reminds us of the
difficulty of placing organizations in neat Reform/Abolition categories.

We are in support of
any resolution that reduces nuclear weapons or nuclear triad expenditure while
simultaneously believing in abolition. This action hi-lights our watchful
eye on the budget trade-offs and the outrageous cost of the “modernization”
plan. We also make the point that nuclear weapons do not add to our security. Place us in the abolition camp always working
for whatever gains in that direction we can score.

In a
breaking investigative article, the Washington Post (1) reported
that the Pentagon quashed a report that found $125 billionin
wasteful spending on high-cost contractors and other
“administrative waste.” This is money that could fix our crumbling
bridges, be invested in our education system, or support health care
access.

At the
same time, the Pentagon is pushing for a $1 trillion overhaul of our
nuclear arsenal - roughly 4,571 nuclear warheads (2) - the
largest investment in nuclear weapons since the Cold War.

There
are Members of Congress who are skeptical of the $1 trillion nuclear
weapons spending binge, and they need your support!Senator Al Franken of Minnesota has introduced a
resolution in the U.S. Senate to scrutinize these plans and ensure
the Pentagon chooses options that are right for 21st century
security needs.

With
the end of the Cold War, we thought the arms race was over, but
another is now beginning. And
we know from history what it will look like: more advanced weapons of
mass destruction and runaway budgets at the Pentagon. Meanwhile, all
across the country our children go hungry, our veterans die of
inadequate health care, and our crumbling bridges collapse. If the
Department of Health and Human Services quashed a $125 billion
savings report, there would be an uproar. We must hold the Pentagon
to the same standards and demand more accountability, including its
plans for the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

A
scaled up nuclear arsenal will do nothing to make us safer. Instead, it incentivizes other countries to
begin or scale up their own arsenals. We as a nation cannot be
successful in preventing the spread of nuclear weapons if we place
such a premium on our own. The Franken Resolution sends a message
that we should be scaling back these excessive plans.

To the Editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette from the
Coordinator of Arkansas WAND urging support for the UN’s vote to adopt an
abolition treaty.

“As we approach the
72ndth anniversary of the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, an historic announcement from the UN that may have gotten lost
in the din of political news. 122 nations have voted to adopt a treaty to Ban the Bomb with only one no
vote. Beginning September 20 nations will have the opportunity to
ratify the treaty. 90 days after 50 countries sign it will be illegal to have
or to work toward having nuclear weapons.

Some people have
downplayed the accomplishment, saying that countries like North Korea will
never give up their nuclear weapons. But 3,700 scientists, including Nobel
Laureates, signed an open letter endorsing the negotiations.

Lawrence Korb, a
Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress who
was President Reagan’s Under Secretary of Defense, calls it a
welcome step toward abolishing nuclear weapons for good. He argues
that although it will be a long process, it is a legal basis for sanctioning
countries that defy the ban.

Former Secretary of
Defense, William Perry, says “the treaty is an important step toward
delegitimizing nuclear war as an acceptable risk of modern civilization, and it
creates a strong moral imperative: Thou shalt not possess nuclear weapons.”

Although the US and
the 8 other nuclear countries did not take part in negotiating the
treaty, the United States should take the lead in ratifying it and
convincing the other nuclear states to follow
suit.

Tell Congress
the US can regain its leadership in the world by ratifying this historic
treaty.”

Jean Gordon

Little Rock

NUKEWATCH, NUKEWATCH
QUARTERLY, Luck, WI

Nukewatch Quarterly (Summer 2017)

Opens with another brilliant essay by John LaForge, who knows
nuclear weapons from a peace perspective as well as anybody. “Legal Evolution:
World Welcomes Draft Treaty Ban on Nuclear Weapons.” He’s in
the same class as AFSC’s Joseph Gerson.
(Where have you read in Arkansas about the “Draft Convention on the
Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons,” delivered on May 22, 2017, to the UN for
final negotiations? One might well
expect such a treaty, supported by 130 countries—but shamefully not by the
US--, to receive significant front page coverage in our statewide
newspaper. And now from June 15 to July
7 in New York the negotiations are engaged.)

LaForge discusses General
George Butler’s Feb. 2, 1998 call for nuclear weapons abolition (the
weapons are illegal); the new Draft Convention: “comprehensive, compelling, and
even awe-inspiring”; including a summary history of international treaties
rejecting nuclear weapons because catastrophically indiscriminate. Let’s join LaForge in giving a thumbs up to
the Draft Treaty! But a thumbs down to
the media and all the other organizations that should be informing the public
about the second greatest peril threatening the planet. –Dick
(6-21-17 to HN com.) (122 UN
nation members voted for the Draft Treaty, which is now circulating the members
for final approval. 7-20-17)

More contents of Nukewatch Summer 2017:

“Chomsky on North Korea’s Provocations & Ours”

The $200 billion since 1983 corporate gravy train ballistic missile
program finally was a success, maybe.

The Pentagon has long lied it had 10 aircraft carriers, but it has
19.

The development of new nuclear warheads approved by Obama with
$12.2 billion funded by Congress even though the US already has 20 each in the
Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany and
50-90 in Italy and Turkey. This is a
packed complex revelatory article, Chomsky typically digging up the facts for a
truthful record.

The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation was founded
in 1982. Its mission is to educate and advocate
for peace and a world free of nuclear weapons and to empower peace leaders.
The Foundation is a non-partisan, non-profit organization with consultative
status to the United Nations and is comprised of over 75,000 individuals and
groups worldwide who realize the imperative for peace in the Nuclear Age.

NAPF’s online
newsletter The Sunflower keeps
readers up to date about nuclear weapons, and I pass it on to my relevant lists. --Dick

LATEST NUMBER OF THE NUCLEAR RESISTER JUNE 8, 2017. Their 37th
year, Jack and Felice Cohen-Joppa published another no. of NR, providing latest news of resistance to US militarism, US global
violence, and nuclear weapons: release of Chelsea
Manning and Ryan Johnson, Good Friday protest of drone warfare at Hancock Field
near Syracuse, Creech AFB in Nevada, and Des Moines, protest at the Nevada
nuclear test site by the Las Vegas Catholic Worker, protests v. Pres. Trump’s
Tomahawk cruise missiles in Syria, blockade of new Destroyer U.S.S. Thomas
Hudner at Bath Iron Works, over 2 pages on international protests. Jack and Felice deserve our support for their
steadfast, awakening newspaper.

The
Nuclear Resister (December 9, 2016).

Some of its contents:

Regular information about and support for imprisoned
anti-nuclear and anti-war activists.

This week, Senior
Fellow John Isaacs and I were on Capitol Hill visiting key members of
Congress and their staff as they celebrated the swearing-in of the new
members and opened the new session of Congress. We were there to ensure
that our priorities will be front-and-center for our new leadership as they
begin the serious tasks of confirming a new presidential cabinet and
consider the array of international security, arms control and nuclear
non-proliferation threats facing our nation.

Senators and
members of the House we spoke to were united in expressing serious concerns
about the dangers of intemperate or off-the-cuff references to the use of
nuclear weapons or a renewed arms race. They made it clear that as we enter
the new administration, nuclear weapons and all their associated risks are
on everyone’s minds.

That’s where we
came in. We answered
questions and talked about policies for non-proliferation and more responsible Pentagon spending. We
offered our expertise on the most delicate foreign policy and international
security issues of the day – from the U.S.’s relationship with Russia to
the threat of North Korea to the need to secure nuclear materials around
the globe.

The conversations
we had this week were important – but they were just a first step on the
long road ahead.

The Titan II carried a W-53 thermonuclear
warhead, with more than 560 times the explosive yield of the bomb that
destroyed Hiroshima.Rob Schoenbaum/Zuma

Update (1/16/2014): The Air Force announced yesterday that it had suspended and revoked the security
clearances of 34 missile launch officers at the Malmstrom base in Montana after
it came to light that they were cheating—or complicit in cheating—on monthly
exams to ensure that they were capable of safely babysitting the nuclear warheads
atop their missiles. Eleven launch officers, two of whom where also implicated
in the cheating episode, were targeted in a separate investigation of illegal
drug use. (As Schlosser told me in an interview, “You don’t want people smoking pot and handling nuclear
weapons.”) The new revelations were just the latest fiasco in the Air Force’s
handling of America’s nuclear arsenal, which military officials invariably
insist is safe. Then again, as you’re about to discover, they’ve lied about
that in the past.

On January 23, 1961, a B-52 packing a pair of Mark 39 hydrogen bombs suffered a
refueling snafu and went into an uncontrolled spin over North Carolina. In the
cockpit of the rapidly disintegrating bomber was a lanyard attached to the
bomb-release mechanism. Intense G-forces tugged hard at it and unleashed the
nukes, which, at four megatons, were 250 times more powerful than the weapon
that leveled Hiroshima. One of them “failed safe” and plummeted to the ground
unarmed. The other weapon’s failsafe mechanisms—the devices designed to prevent
an accidental detonation—were subverted one by one, as Eric Schlosser recounts in
his new book, Command and Control:

When the lanyard was pulled, the
locking pins were removed from one of the bombs. The Mark 39 fell from the
plane. The arming wires were yanked out, and the bomb responded as though it
had been deliberately released by the crew above a target. The pulse generator
activated the low-voltage thermal batteries. The drogue parachute opened, and
then the main chute. The barometric switches closed. The timer ran out,
activating the high-voltage thermal batteries. The bomb hit the ground, and the
piezoelectric crystals inside the nose crushed. They sent a firing signal…

Unable to deny that two of its bombs
had fallen from the sky—one in a swampy meadow, the other in a field near Faro,
North Carolina—the Air Force insisted that there had never been any danger of a
nuclear detonation. This was a lie.

Here’s the truth: Just days after
JFK was sworn in as president, one of the most terrifying weapons in our
arsenal was a hair’s breadth from detonating on American soil. It would have pulverized
a portion of North Carolina and, given strong northerly winds, could have
blanketed East Coast cities (including New York, Baltimore, and Washington, DC)
in lethal fallout. The only thing standing between us and an explosion so
catastrophic that it would have radically altered the course of history was a
simple electronic toggle switch in the cockpit, a part that probably cost a
couple of bucks to manufacture and easily could have been undermined by a
short circuit—hardly a far-fetched scenario in an electronics-laden airplane
that’s breaking apart.

The anecdote above is just one
of many “holy shit!” revelations readers will discover in the latest book from
the best-selling author of Fast Food Nation. Easily the most
unsettling work of nonfiction I’ve ever read, Schlosser’s six-year
investigation of America’s “broken arrows” (nuclear weapons mishaps) is by and
large historical—this stuff is top secret, after all—but the book is beyond
relevant. It’s critical reading in a nation with thousands of nukes still
on hair-trigger alert.

In sections, Command and
Control reads like a character-driven thriller as Schlosser draws on
his deep reporting, extensive interviews, and documents obtained via the
Freedom of Information Act to demonstrate how human error, computer glitches,
dilution of authority, poor communications, occasional incompetence, and the
routine hoarding of crucial information have nearly brought about our
worst nightmare on numerous occasions.

While casual readers will learn a
great deal about the history and geopolitics of our nuclear arsenal, Schlosser’s central narrative is built
around a deadly 1980 explosion at a missile silo in Damascus, Arkansas,
where the W-53 thermonuclear warhead, the most powerful weapon ever mounted on
a missile, sat atop a Titan II. He puts us on site as the catastrophe unfolds,
offering an intimate window on the perspectives and personalities of those
involved. It’s a gripping yarn that shows how the military concept of “command
and control”—the process that governs how decisions are made and orders are
executed—functions in practice, and how it can unravel in a crisis.

(a longer version of this entry was sent to the HN
committee and a few others 12-31-16)

AETN/PBS will show the new film Command and Control on Tuesday, Jan. 10, 8pm. The following night AETN will show two
related programs at 8 and 9, NOVA: “The
Nuclear Option,” and “Uranium—Twisting the Dragon’s Tail.”

Aug 25, 2016 - The Arkansas Educational Television Network is
a state network of PBSmember ... 'American Experience: Command and Control' detailing Damascus, ... 'We believe 'Command and Control' will help all Arkansans to ...

Jun 26, 2016 - Take a look at the trailer for "Command and Control," a documentary retelling the ... The
movie will be in theatrical release in the fall and an airing on PBS is planned. ... He said the AETN airing is most likely to be in January.

ON A TRANQUIL SUMMER
NIGHT in July 2012, a trio of peace activists infiltrated the
Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Nicknamed the “Fort
Knox of Uranium,” Y-12 was supposedly one of the most secure sites in the
world, a bastion of warhead parts and hundreds of tons of highly enriched
uranium—enough to power thousands of nuclear bombs. The three activists—a house
painter, a Vietnam War veteran, and an 82-year-old Catholic nun—penetrated the
complex’s exterior with alarming ease; their strongest tools were two pairs of
bolt cutters and three hammers. Once inside, these pacifists hung protest
banners, spray-painted biblical messages, and streaked the walls with human
blood. Then they waited to be arrested.

WITH THE BREAK-IN and their symbolic actions, the activists hoped
to draw attention to a costly military-industrial complex that stockpiles
deadly nukes. But they also triggered a political and legal firestorm of urgent
and troubling questions. What if they had been terrorists? Why do the United
States and Russia continue to possess enough nuclear weaponry to destroy the
world several times over?

IN ALMIGHTY, WASHINGTON POST REPORTER Dan
Zak answers these questions by reexamining America’s love-hate relationship to
the bomb, from the race to achieve atomic power before the Nazis did to the
solemn 70th anniversary of Hiroshima. At a time of concern about proliferation
in such nations as Iran and North Korea, the U.S. arsenal is plagued by its own
security problems. This life-or-death quandary is unraveled in Zak’s
eye-opening account, with a cast that includes the biophysicist who first
educated the public on atomic energy, the prophet who predicted the creation of
Oak Ridge, the generations of activists propelled into resistance by their
faith, and the Washington bureaucrats and diplomats who are trying to keep the
world safe. Part historical adventure, part courtroom drama, part moral
thriller, Almightyreshapes the accepted narratives surrounding
nuclear weapons and shows that our greatest modern-day threat remains a power
we discovered long ago.

SEE MORE

PRAISE

“This is a strangely captivating book—dark and
utterly frightening…Zak’s narrative is a perfectly measured blend of biography,
suspense, and history. He skillfully uses the small, finite story of the Y-12 protest to explore our
national identity as a people whose culture is now intimately connected with
things nuclear.”–Kai Bird, The New York Times Book Review

“With nuns splashing blood, countries making pledges, diplomats working to
reduce the size of world-destroying arsenals, suppliers cheering a new Cold
War, Zak demonstrates that we’re all in it together. And he’s honest enough to
report as well the hard truth that none of us yet knows how to get out of it
alive.” –Richard Rhodes, The Washington Post (author
of The Making of the Atomic Bomb)

“Centering on a single episode, a powerful declaration of conscience, a Washington
Post reporter tells an intensely unsettling story about living with our
nuclear arsenal. In July 2012, cutting through fences topped with razor wire
and avoiding guards, guns, sensors, armored cars, and alarms, an 80-year-old
nun, a Vietnam veteran, and a housepainter, all deeply religious, all
affiliated with the pacifist Plowshares movement, broke into the Y-12 National
Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, the “Fort Knox of Uranium.”… it’s the
moral convictions demonstrated by Zak’s three holy fools that will remain with
readers. A scrupulously reported, gracefully told, exquisitely paced
debut.” –Kirkus (starred review)

“Zak takes the reader on a journey into the still-vibrant realm of the US
nuclear arms complex. His guides are an aging nun, a house-painter and other
everyday Americans who realize the senseless violence at the center of the
nation’s national security. A brilliant portrayal of these heroes of our time.” –Kate
Brown, author of Plutopia

David Swanson, World Beyond War, New UN Initiative: Treaty
Proposed to Ban
Nuclear Weapons; Conference and Action in September

Stephen Miles, Win
Without War: Write Now

WAND, Contact Your
Congressmen

President Obama Visits Hiroshima: 7 Responses

Greg Mitchell, Hollywood’s Whitewash of the Bombings

Joseph Gerson, H-N Events Around the World; Gerson on the
Meaning of
Hiroshima and Problems of Deterrence

Hastie, Condemn Air War Too

President John F. Kennedy, Jr.’s Speech for Peace His
Greatest Speech

ABOUT DAN ZAK

Dan Zak is a reporter for The Washington Post. He has written a
wide range of news stories, narratives, and profiles while on local, national,
and foreign assignments. He is from Buffalo, N.Y., and lives in Washington,
D.C.